Sunday, October 14, 2018

Grumpy Baby Turns Four

Yesterday James turned four.

He woke up and asked if it was really and truly actually his birthday and if he was really actually four years old and I told him that he was. 

We had a big day planned and the least exciting part of that big day was probably the cake, because the day started with driving out to a festival, and riding on a train in his own caboose, and then going on rides at a fair (and there will be more on that later in another post). 

And then, when everyone was tired out from all the fun, we came home and threw the decoration into place, and had cake. And after the cake there was pizza. Which was the perfect order for a fourth birthday party.


And because I'm sentimental I just had to look back over the years at how our big boy has gotten so big.

Because it doesn't seem like that long ago I was cracking jokes about our "Grumpy Baby."

For anyone who hasn't been around all that long, our smiley three turned four year old boy, was an easy going baby with a quick frown.


Who turned into an easy going toddler, with an even quicker scowl. 


He's the first one to ham it up for the camera these days (although in the picture below he and his brother were watching a particularly frightening episode of... Shimmer and Shine) but it wasn't always that way. 


Helpful readers used to suggest that it was because I was using a flash and the flash bothered him.

But I never used a flash. He would just quietly seemed to regard the world around him with a certain level of quiet suspicion when he was a tiny floppy baby (he had low tone and hyperflexibility and the one thing he probably did hold against me was the hours and hours of tummy time and PT practice it took for him to finally sit up at close to a year old).


I did put some of my favorite Grumpy Pics down below. Because they're still some of my favorites.


And he loves to come up with stories about why he was so grumpy in them.


He'll tell me that he didn't like the shirt I had put him in, or the jacket. 


In one particular photo at a farm he told me he was certain I was going to abandon him there (What?!?!?! At that point the child had never even left my side!)! 


So these days he has quite a few theories about his frowns, and loves looking at them (I'm frowning there because it's too yellow, he'll say).



I guess no one can really blame him for this particular expression of disgust:


And so Grumpy Baby is now four and not nearly so grumpy.


He's still pretty cuddly and cute.


And bossy with his littlest sister.

He loves saying "No Tess no!' 


Because of course he does.


And she's become pretty gleeful about finding ways to annoy him, particularly when she's sitting in her car seat and tries to put her foot on top of his leg.

Because she's his little sister.



















Happy Birthday James! We're so lucky you're our Grumpy/Smiley Boy! 

And because I've been busy these past few days and haven't share the pre-birthday fun:





And one video about how we're attempting to see if decorations and Maggie are a possibility:

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